


Deck the Halls

by rosa_himmelblau



Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 17:35:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20246686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: Even if you are in the mob, you still have to get ready for Christmas.





	Deck the Halls

Vince hadn't made the scheduled meet and Frank's blood pressure was through the ceiling as he pulled up in front of the Brooklyn house. He'd made his last check-in, sounded fine, according to Uncle Mike—

Frank pounded on the door, frustration and worry driving him just about crazy. No answer. He turned from the door, scanning the neighborhood, wondering if he could pick the lock without being noticed. _ Early Sunday morning, most of the neighborhood's probably at Mass—_

Then he heard it. The woman's voice wasn't loud but it certainly was piercing.

"Vincenzo, that point is too pointy."

Frank's gaze followed the voice and found an elderly woman standing in her yard two houses down and across the street. She was looking up at the man on her roof.

"My Gino can line up those lights perfectly, you would think he was a mathematician—"

"I know, Mrs. Capprelli, but Gino's not here and I've never done this before."

Frank found himself drawn to the scene. Mrs. Capprelli gave him a suspicious look. "Who are you?"

Automatically he pulled out his badge and showed it to her. "Frank McPike, OCB. I'm here to have a word with Mr. Terranova."

"He's a cop, Mrs. Capprelli, he's here to throw me in jail for my unpaid parking tickets," Vince called down.

She turned away from him dismissively. "You can arrest him when he's done here." She raised her voice. "If he ever gets done; I've never seen anybody so slow! Vincenzo, does that look like a straight line to you?"

"No, ma'am." Vince's tone, Frank noted, was patience incarnate. "I'm trying to straighten it out."

"Try harder." They watched in silence as Vince moved carefully across the roof, trying to pull the string of lights straight.

Frank shivered, watched his breath solidify in the cold air, at a loss for what to do. "Mr. Terranova, I need to talk to you right now," he ordered.

"Get lost, McPike, I haven't done anything."

"He's not finished," Mrs. Capprelli said sternly. "You can take him when he finishes and not before."

"You're in such a hurry, why don't you come up here and help me?" Frank didn't answer. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Shit. Frank climbed up the ladder and onto the roof. "Very funny, Vincenzo."

"You're not afraid of heights, are you, Frank?" Vince asked. His voice was quiet, but there was a definite smirk in it.

"Shut up. I waited an hour for you—"

"I'm sorry, Frank, but I got drafted, wha'd you want me to do, tell Mrs. Capprelli I couldn't put her lights up for her because I had to meet my field supervisor? I tried to tell her I had someplace I had to be, but since she thinks I'm a hood, she told me it could wait."

"Some hood; you can't even brush off an old lady."

"You're not doing so well yourself."

"Shut up."

"How hard is it to make a star?" Mrs. Capprelli demanded.

Vince turned away, laughing.

"I don't know, ma'am, I never thought about it."

Mrs. Capprelli glared at Frank disapprovingly. "I supposed you just hang your lights every which way."

"I've been insulted by criminals, by D.A.'s, by superiors; by my father and my wife, and even by my son, once, that night I wouldn't let him stay up 'til three in the morning to watch some movie he had to see. Why does this woman implying that I can't decorate my house for Christmas make me feel like a failure?"

"How do you think I feel?" Vince demanded in a whisper. "Every move I make, she tells me how her Gino could do it so much better—"

"Well, where is this brilliant Gino, anyway?"

"You want the whole story? OK, fine. Last year, Gino—who's fifty-three, by the way—nearly fell off the roof putting up the perfect star. His wife locked him out of the house 'til after New Year's, she was so upset with him for trying to make her a widow. This year she went to Pete to get him to help her keep her husband off the roof of his mother's house. So when Gino brought Mrs. Capprelli home from Mass at seven o'clock this morning, Pete waylaid him and brought him over to our house. Then he made me get up and he dragged me over and told Mrs. Capprelli I'd be happy to help her. I was still half asleep. Next thing I knew I was up on the roof getting yelled at. What time is it now?"

"Nearly ten."

"Shit. Well, the way I figure it, we're stuck up here 'til after one, when noon Mass is over and maybe Pete comes back and rescues us. Either that, or 'til we figure out how to make the perfect star out of lights."

"It's only eighteen degrees! We're gonna be frozen solid if we don't get down from here soon."

"Uh-huh, well, good luck. When I tried to get down, she moved the ladder."

Frank stared at him. "You're kidding. You lured me up here knowing we wouldn't be able to get back down?"

"I figured I had the choice between you down there, helping Mrs. Capprelli yell at me, or you up here, getting yelled at with me." He stared dismally at the mess of lights. "I wish I had a template or something; I can't figure out what the angles are supposed to be to make a perfect star."

"Make that one wider," Mrs. Capprelli called up. Frank looked at Vinnie, who shrugged.

"You got a better idea?"

"Right now my best idea is pushing you off the roof."

"Yeah, right, I love you too. Here, help me with this."

"Why can't we just make one of those stars that go—" Frank drew a star in the air with his finger.

"You mean the kind that overlaps and interconnects? Tried it, it's not perfect. Anyway, there's a way of doing this; I know, I see the damn star every year and yeah, it's perfect."

"Well, why don't I climb down from here, go get Gino, and he can tell you how to do it?"

"If you climb down you'll leave me here," Vince said grimly.

"Of course I will. I'll go back and tell Darryl that we've lost one of our best agents because he's stuck on the roof and he can't get down. That's it, Terranova!" he snapped loudly. "You don't want to talk to me here, I'll come back with a warrant and take you downtown!" He quickly moved to the ladder and began descending.

"Where are you going?" Mrs. Capprelli demanded.

"Ma'am, I am going to get a warrant so Mr. Terranova can spend Christmas in jail," Frank answered politely. "If he's not finished with your decorating when I come back, you could be taken in for obstructing justice." Frank returned to his car and started the engine, letting it—and his hands—warm up before he drove around the corner and called Lifeguard.

"He's fine, he's—it's a long story. Right now what I need is some way of getting him down off the roof."

There was a moment of silence. "Frank, if that's supposed to be a joke, I've heard it and it isn't funny."

"It's not a joke, it's a long, stupid story," Frank said. "I'm sure he'll tell you all about it later."

"If he doesn't, you'd better. Down off the roof . . . . OK, what do you need?"

"Get me the number for a Mrs. Capprelli on Holliston Avenue in Brooklyn."

"For this you called me? You could have called information."

"Next time I'll do that."

"What're you going to do?"

"I'm going to make a crank phone call to an old lady."

"Vinnie's on the roof and you're making crank phone calls." Frank could hear uncertainty in Uncle Mike's voice. After a minute he said, "OK, here it is," and read him the phone number.

"Thanks, Uncle, I'll go rescue Vince before he gets frostbite." Frank hung up and drove back to where he could see Mrs. Capprelli standing in her yard. He dialed her number, hoping she could hear her phone. Apparently she could; after a half dozen rings he saw her go into her house. Frank edged the car up in front of the house and honked the horn just as Mrs. Capprelli picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

Vince was standing on the roof staring at his car as if he wasn't sure what to do. Frank motioned at him to get in.

"Hello?"

"Hello," Frank said slowly, hoping he was disguising his voice well enough. Vince had caught on, anyway; he had moved to the ladder and was climbing down. "Is—uh—is Boris there?"

Vince was running across the lawn to the car.

"No, I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number."

Vince was in the car, laughing delightedly; Frank had never seen him quite like that. 

"Thank you, ma'am," Frank said politely, hung up and accelerated. "I told you I wouldn't leave you stranded."

"Yeah," Vince agreed soberly, "you did. In the future I'll try to remember that."

"See that you do."

The car was warm, the coffee Frank had bought him was hot and the cup felt good in his hands. Frank was still complaining about his own short stint on the roof and Vinnie's inability to deal with old ladies, but he'd wrapped a blanket around Vinnie's shoulders, so Vinnie just listened to him. The truth was, he kind of liked Frank, since his complaining was just a stress reliever and his insults were the closest he could get to expressing his affection—and affection was something Vinnie liked no matter how it was expressed. When his teeth had stopped chattering, he said, "I didn't notice you doing any better with her. Y'know, **I** gave up crank calls when I graduated from high school."

"You want to go back up on the roof?"

"Very funny. I'd like to see you try'n get me up on a roof."

"From now on you call me if you've got a delay like that; I've got enough good reasons to worry about you without these unnecessary ones."

"Well, I tried yelling 'Frank!' but I guess you didn't hear me. And what've you got to worry about, anyway? I'm not working, my cover's secure."

"It's my job to worry."

"Sometime I wanna see your job description; I bet it doesn't say that."

Frank was watching him covertly; _not bad,_ Vinnie thought, _but it's hard to fool someone who does the same thing you do. Still thinks I'm gonna crack up; good thing I never told him about Sonny'n me, he'd never buy my recovery._

"You gonna be ready to get back to work soon?"

"I dunno. Maybe. Whatcha got?"

"Nothing, yet, but I want to know you're ready before I put you out there again."

"Not that this hasn't been fun, but could I go home now? I'd like to crawl under my electric blanket for a few hours."

Frank was watching him openly now. "You all right?"

"I'm fine. You gonna drive me home?"

"You sure Mrs. Caprelli won't catch you again?"

"Trust me, I can get in the house without anyone seeing me."

"I'll just bet you can."

Vinnie just grinned at him. "I promise to be on time for our next meet."

"Tell your brother for me that if this happens again I'll drag him in for interfering with the official duties of an officer of the court."

"Hey, great, I'd like to watch you try'n bust a priest-—you know, when they talk higher court, they don't kid around." Vinnie was out of the car before Frank could reply.


End file.
